NOVEL NEXT Chapter 66: Confession
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Karen: The realism was my favorite thing until the first time I had my head cut off. Now, I wake up covered in sweat, dreaming about having my head cut off again. My brain is rehearsing what we'll do the next time that happens. Just like the teeth dreams.
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Saturday, November 16th, 2090, about 2:20 pm MST, Montana City
"I have to make a confession," Claire said.
"I was really hoping you guys would vote not to keep going after we found out about the slavery thing. But you decided you trusted me instead. And it means the world to me that you trust me. I'm not going to betray that."
Her voice trembled slightly. She hated that.
"Having said that, I may have already betrayed it. Because I really want this stream to be a success."
"I know that Gordon's going to leave eventually. Maybe I will too—go part-time. I don't even know what's going to happen with you and Harry. But I've seen all of our friends growing up. I know that things fall apart."
"It was originally Harry's stream. It'll probably go back to being Harry's stream eventually. I just… I wanted to leave him with the best I could. And I knew you needed the money, and you wouldn't take 'handouts'.
It had been immensely frustrating when Claire realized—first—that Karen was not going to allow her to help with her invention.
"There aren't a lot of perks," Claire had told her, "to being friends with an heiress if you won't let me spend money on you—"
"—I'm a real friend," Karen had countered. "That's why I don't let you spend money on me."
Karen hadn't understood. Claire didn't think she ever would. It wasn't reasonable.
Karen went over there—every week—for at least a few hours a day, or at least a few hours a week. Mowed the lawn. Swept the floor. Checked the plumbing. Made sure that the place she'd grown up in—with her abusive father, that alcoholic—would be ready to sell at a moment's notice.
She'd poured so much time and energy, and money into making sure it was ready to sell for top dollar. The place was a showhouse now.
Her father still lived there. He would vacantly blow in and out as the mood took him, apparently. But it might as well be vacant. She was going to save him.
She was sure.
She'd dedicated her degree—and years of her life—studying, building, and trying to create an invention. With Claire's brother helping, no less. That had been… interesting to find out. Claire had been the last one in the loop.
Idiopathic neuralgia, the doctors said. Psychosomatic, they said.
No one believed him or treated his pain, so he hurt. So he drank. So he was a violent and abusive asshole. And his daughter—Karen—loved him anyway. She had dedicated herself to the task of proving that he was in pain. That everyone else who had pain did, too, or to give doctors a way to tell the difference, whichever it was..
She was making the pain-sensing device to save him.
He didn't deserve her.
She was too good for him.
Sometimes Claire thought neither Gordon nor she deserved Karen. But her stupid pride was still annoying.
"So when Gordon did the quickdraw, I realized it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. A quickdraw would naturally pull other LARPers from the wild west to challenge him, I thought. But no one was coming forward. So… I hired someone."
"And it worked. The stream was very—the stream was great. I hired someone else. That stream was great too. It ended up being a minor bump in the road each time, but it added a little zest, a little zing, a little interest."
"I thought that was why I was there," Karen said airily. Her expression was hurt, though. She was performing.
"And I thought, with the longform thing Harry wanted to do, we could go bigger."
"So I hired a solo to do a party wipe."
"What the hell?" asked Karen. Hurt, turning sour.
"Hear me out. It's not legal to pay someone to be a patsy and fall before you. That's rigging a fight, and that's against the guidelines. But if I hire someone to make the game harder on us by actually trying to party wipe us, then it's legal."
"And I have all the faith in the world in you guys. And Gordon."
"And then it turned out that Gordon won't be here. So we will be facing a level 300 necromancer—plus his army—alone."
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Stunned silence filled the room.
"I shouldn't have done that," Claire said. "I made decisions for the group instead of giving you the choice. I stole your agency. I'm going to do better next time."
"No," Karen said. "You shouldn't have."
Her friend sighed. "—But I think I understand why you did it—and I don't think you had bad intentions. You were giving us plausible deniability."
"I was. I still shouldn't have."
"Don't worry about it. It's just a game."
A game that earned her nearly half her income. And Harry, half again his.
He was simpler. "I believe you," he said. "And I still think we should fight the necromancer."
Karen nodded.
Claire didn't push it.
But it reminded her of the first time she and Harry had talked about apologies.
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Harry had embarrassed her.
Looking back, she knew her reaction had as much to do with Hiram as with Harry's actual behavior. Harry had burped—loudly, deliberately—trying to land a joke. And maybe it would've worked with someone else. But not with her father. Not when they were trying to look like serious people. She'd felt reduced, as if she were someone with bad taste in men. Like she was dating someone immature.
She'd told him so.
She told him it was immature, that it embarrassed her, and that she was angry. She stopped answering his calls.
Eventually, Harry sent a text:
I think we should talk about this. How about an apology dinner?
They went out to eat. He thanked her for coming. He held her hand across the table. He apologized—clearly and directly—for his lack of decorum, and more importantly, for not preparing. He hadn't asked what kind of evening it would be. He hadn't done the minimum social modeling to recognize that her father's table might have different rules than his own. And that was on him. He would do better next time. He asked if he'd missed anything in context: she said no. He thanked her for hearing him out.
Then he ate his food. He tried to return to normal conversation.
"That's it?" Claire had asked.
"I think that's all I did," he'd said.
"That wasn't much of an apology."
Harry's voice was gentle. "Well… here's how I figure it."
"When people hurt us, we get angry. Because it feels like the scales are off.
On your side, the tally might say: one harm received.
That mismatch leaves us unbalanced.
So the standard script says: I owe you.
To pay that debt, I'm supposed to submit. To abase myself. So that we're 'even'. And maybe I haven't…performed the role with the kind of drama that's usually expected.
But I won't do that, because that would hurt our relationship. It would normalize something unhealthy: that one of us, to make the other one satisfied and fulfill the 'urge for vengeance,' must embarrass themselves to earn forgiveness.
Instead, let's drop the balance sheet.
If we're truth-seeking—both trying to build something healthy together—then we can look back at what I did and say:
That mistake wouldn't have happened if I'd communicated better.
I failed to try to predict what you were looking for in the relationship, and a good partner tries to do that..
And I will do better next time.
It's like: We're building something together—a relationship. My rough draft didn't quite cut it but I was trying, and then we can move forward together instead of trying to balance hurts.
If we're on the same team, we don't need a one-to-one tally.
That's for enemies."
She'd stared at her plate for a long time.
And now, years later, sitting in silence while the others spoke, she realized:
Her father had never forgiven her without punishment. Without requiring her submission. Without making her rehash, over and over, why she should feel ashamed.
That wasn't about discovering some hidden truth. That was about dominance. Power in the relationship.
"You're trying to tell me," she had said back then, "that the way everyone does apologies is wrong."
Harry had smiled, quiet and sad. "I'm trying to tell you that the way wise people do apologies… isn't how most people were taught to. My grandfather, the rabbi, told me 'confession is not performance. It is teshuvah—return. Turning from the harm, naming it, and choosing not to repeat it. If someone does that and you still demand they abase themselves, then you're not seeking healing—you're getting even."
And that had made sense the moment he said it.
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"To recap," Claire said. "I'm sorry. I've gone ahead and canceled all but one after this. That one was so hard to set up... you'll know it when you see it. It was another challenge for Gordon. I actually think it could still play off well. I'm… I'm conflicted. Because if we tell Gordon about it ahead of time, then he'll feel like it was unfair to the challenger."
"Just don't tell him," said Harry. "He really wouldn't want to know until after. Let him have a good, clean fight."
Claire nodded. That had been something she was worried about.
"Thank you," she said.
"You were honest with us," Karen said. "I know you didn't get that from your father. Or Momma Dearest. So—it's personal growth." She kissed the top of Claire's head in passing. "So. You're welcome."
"Anyway," Harry said, leaning back as though all the stress had just drained away. "We're probably going to want to put some thought into shutting this guy down," said Harry. "It's a lot of corpses and a lot of exposed edges."
"Wait, you still want to stream?"
They both nodded, Karen with a thoughtful frown, but assenting nevertheless.
"Why a necromancer?" asked Karen.
"Well—Karen, you can one-hit basically any part of his army. I can just deny him the battlefield, which is a hard counter for a mass-creature summoner. And Harry can give us the longevity to make it through and grind."
"I was hoping Gordon would be able to pick off the necromancer, but… I hate to ask you to do double duty, Karen."
"I love doing double duty," Karen said, and winked. She walked to the fridge with a sashay of her hips that was entirely gratuitous.
Claire cringed.
"I suppose your minds are made up, then," she said. "Tomorrow, after Gordon leaves… we will take down the Barrow Lord."